With
baseball on its way out and football and basketball and hockey primed
to take
over the sporting center stage, a collection of highly readable, very
relevant
titles are there for your gift-giving and reading enjoyment.Just read on.

Fields of Battle by Brian Curtis Flatiron
Books,
$29.99, 308 pages is a brilliantly told evocation of a time and a place
– Pearl
Harbor, the Rose Bowl and the Boys Who Went to War.The New
York Times best-selling author tells the little known tale of how
after
Pearl Harbor was bombed the 1942 Rose Bowl was moved to Durham, North
Carolina.
The game pitted Duke University against

An
underdog
Oregon State team. This is truly a needed book for our time
interweaving the
war and the game and the young men who went off the field of play to
battle for
their country. It is all about courage and patriotism, timely and
timeless. REMARKABLE READ

The Perfect Pass by S. C. Gwynne
(Scribner, $27.00,
320 pages) is all about American Genius and the Reinvention of
Football” and how
Coach Hal Mumme over 30 years ago changed college football by going to
“Air
Raid” and the elemental game charming passing game. Some called what he
created
an “aerial circus” while other deemed it a genius approach. Whatever
one call s
it – the forward pass, the quick paced usage, changed the way the
defense
played and how the game was played/ the book is amazing.

He
writes
how his career was the top of the fantasy.” The former tight end for
the Denver
Broncos has created a book that is part stroll thru the byways of
fantasy
football and all worthwhile reading. A WAY WITH WORDS

Belichick and Brady by Michael Holley
(Hachette Books,
$27, 416 pages) is a must read for all football fans and especially New
England
Patriot zealots. The book in defining detail brings us up close and
personal
into the hearts and minds of the two of the NFL’s most stalwart and
original
individuals. The talented Holly mixes and matches material from dozens
of past
and present Patriot performers and executives. Anecdotes and insights
galore is
the result. A WINNER

Counting
The Days While My Mind Slips Away by Ben Utecht (Howard
Books, $26.00,
256 pages) is from the Super Bowl tight end for the Indianapolis Colts.
This is
a painful book. This is an important book. This is a tragic book.
“Counting The
Days While My Mind Slips Away” is
part-memoir and all love-letter to his wife and daughters who one day
possibly
may not recognize them because of the damage Ben Utecht suffered five
major
concussions playing pro football. A
WORTHY READ

Friday,
Saturday, Sunday in Texas by Nick
Eatman, $26.99 with 16 page color insert) traces the way of life and
play of
the Plano Senior High School Wildcats, the Baylor University Bears and
the
Dallas Cowboys. Intimate, behind-the-scenes, revealing the
interconnection
among the three teams, veteran sports book guy Nick Eatman has out-done
himself.GET THIS BOOK

BOOKENDS: ESPECIALLY worth going
for is “100
Greatest Baseball Autographs” by Tom Zappala and Ellen Zappala (Peter
E.
Randall Publisher, 212 pages, $30.00) a beautifully produced cornucopia
of
amazing baseball autographs and the stories behind each one of them
from Honus
Wagner to Derek Jeter.For browsing, for
reading, for gifting – MOST WORTHWHILE--
GO FOR IT!

And finally is my
acclaimed WHEN IT WAS JUST A GAME:
REMEMBERING THE FIRST SUPER BOWL, now in paperback: http://www.lyonspress.com/book/9781493026753

Dr.
Harvey Frommer, a professor at
Dartmouth College in the MALS program, is in his 40th year of writing
books. A
noted oral historian and sports journalist, he is the author of 42
sports books
including the classics: best-selling “New York City Baseball,
1947-1957″ and
best-selling Shoeless Joe and Ragtime Baseball,as well as his acclaimed
Remembering Yankee Stadium and best-selling Remembering Fenway Park.
His highly
praised When It Was Just a Game: Remembering the First Super Bowl was
published
last fall.